I'm looking for a good music and file sharing app. I have a couple of questions. Which apps do you recommend? I was using LimeWire, but I didn't really get the kinds of hits that I did with Napster in it's hey-day. I know I don't use it as often as I used Napster a few years ago, but I'm still interested in getting good results fast. Also, which format do you recommend? I have about 40 gigs of MP3s and would like to be able to play those, but it shouldn't be much of a problem to start using ogg vorbis if it's really worthwhile. Any suggestions? Please include your gentoo experiences. (i.e. Are there ebuilds out there?)_________________if i never try anything, i never learn anything..
if i never take a risk, i stay where i am..

Whats the guts with that ?? havent checked the site lately as ive been setting up Gentoo from stage2 with a dialup (takes a while) but got an icq from a mate re this prob..previously I had been using the win ver of audiogalaxy (wanted a gui) under winex .........._________________Theres no substitute for C.I.

Kazaa was really nice for a while.. that died tho
AudioGalaxy was pretty good too.. that died yesterday

I use qtella now but find downloading really hit and miss. I would really love to find another console based tool like Kazaa but haven't had any luck yet. Anyone know of anything worth having a look at?

there's a proggie called xnap ... it uses the openap network (kinda the same as napster, but opensource), but I don't recommend to use it. Sony is realy sniffing around on the network... I've been caught uploading two songs of a new album ... so it's realy dangerous (except when you don't share files, but then you lose the whole concept of filesharing...

I've heard some good comments on blupster (www.blubster.com), but I think it's windows only ... the same with xolox (www.xolox.com) -> also windows only ...

Yikes! Well, I certainly hadn't thought of that. I kinda wish I hadn't started the thread. I tend to buy CDs regardless though because I can't stand the poor quality of 99% of the MP3's out there. I don't think ogg has help either. At least it's nice to be able to not have to insert forty different disks into my computer every day._________________if i never try anything, i never learn anything..
if i never take a risk, i stay where i am..

To clarify, feel free to discuss P2P file sharing networks. There is nothing illegal about them, despite what the MPAA/RIAA might like you to believe.

The only thing we ask you NOT to do is discuss exchanging copyrighted materials over these networks. I don't care what you do in your spare time and I'm certainly not a saint myself, but the US (where these forums live) is a litigious society and we'd rather not get hit with a lawsuit. That would be a Bad Thing.

--kurt_________________The problem with political jokes is that they get elected

Yikes! Well, I certainly hadn't thought of that. I kinda wish I hadn't started the thread. I tend to buy CDs regardless though because I can't stand the poor quality of 99% of the MP3's out there. I don't think ogg has help either. At least it's nice to be able to not have to insert forty different disks into my computer every day.

I rip mostly all of my music CD's into ogg and I don't notice any quality loss.. Or perhaps I don't pay enough attention to it
I'm trying to rip all my audio CD's, I rip one or two a day with abcde. Works like a charm. And it's legal

I rip mostly all of my music CD's into ogg and I don't notice any quality loss..

Well, what I was talking about was just the general quality of music that you can get from a P2P network. There are a lot of really crappy rips out there. I have to buy and rip anything myself if I want it to sound good. ogg and mp3 are probably about the same as far as data loss goes. They'll just cut out the really high and low sounds and compress the rest. Sometimes you can hear it sometimes you can't. _________________if i never try anything, i never learn anything..
if i never take a risk, i stay where i am..

direct connect is pretty nice, edonkey is 'ok' but i find it VERY hard to get decent download rates (i don't know why). I've been told about audio galaxy by friends but I just never got into it (too bad, now I checked out the site and read about it smore and it's gone

Anyway, I really hope something similar to AudioGalaxy comes along, or they do the 'opt-in' thing.

You can use the donkey console binary, and the donkey 'alpha' gui (check out www.thedonkeynetwork.com), and please don't abuse the network.

[rant]
Edonkey is crap, it has the ability to be one of the fastest file sharing applications ever to see a computer *but* the developers don't listen to a word anyone tells them *and* have the nerve to want money for it in the end.
[/rant]

I find this very Microsoft'ish and displeasing, not that I have anything against Microsoft. I mean you really have to admire a company that charges money to *let* you become a beta-tester for there software._________________This message self destructed a long time ago.

Just thought I would let everyone know that I'm using qtella. It's got decent speeds and the quality is as acceptible as it gets. If anyone can recommend something better, please do._________________if i never try anything, i never learn anything..
if i never take a risk, i stay where i am..

i've tried everything: AudioGalaxy (was SUPERB on music, nothing matched it), but they have now blocked all downloads. Gnutella (Qtella, GTK-Gnutella, LimeWire, Morpheus, Xolox & a whole lot more clients) - Gnutella is a good IDEA, but in real-life, it works bad, in my experience. You can get all from 10+ TB available, suddenly, and after 2 minutes that count can drop to 100gb, and peers/ultrapeers are fairly unstable, so this happens -alot-, and the available filecount/bytesize differs from every time you connect - also downloads are hard to get, since there are alot of misconfigured clients out there, or they are behind a firewall. The good idea behind gnutella is that it is totally de-centralized - the bad idea about this, is when the network grows to more than it can handle, and everything just doesnt work good anymore. eDonkey - tried it, didnt like it at all. Kazaa/Grokster - probably the best P2P network available now - approx. 2-3 petabytes shared, no native linux client - which IMHO sucks, since there WAS a cmd-line Kazaa client available before the new kazaa owners (Sharman Networks, aussie company) removed the kazaa linux client, and changed their protocol somewhat so that it doesnt work. giFT also worked with the fasttrack network before (kazaa/grokster and formerly Morpheus till they changed to the Gnutella network), but does not work any more. OpenNap - in my opinion, one of the best P2P networks to date. Opensource Napster protocol, that allows sharing of anything, not just mp3's. currently, using XNap - [url]xnap.sourceforge.net[/url] - i'm getting approx. 500 TB of shared files, which mostly are good files, rare music files/mp3's, that i enjoyed finding on AudioGalaxy - but not as good. a new thing also just appeared, called [url]MediaSeek.pl[/url] - which resembles AudioGalaxy very much, but ofcourse is not a fraction as established as AudioGalaxy was, but its growing _fast_ after AudioGalaxy decided to shut their doors - bad news, they dont have a Linux client yet, and the network is getting kinda overloaded, but thats supposed to be fixed - same type of webinterface as AudioGalaxy and everything, so check it out if you can. Direct Connect, yes - good, but this isnt really a P2P network, in my opinion. and you also need to know the people to get good hubs - also, the searching/browsing features really sucks (flame away, but i think so, and so does many many others).

the place i actually get my music, is from irc channels (XDCC bots), i wont mention them here, or from what network, or whatever, since that would probably make my post deleted and so on, and it would also be spamming

i wasnt planning on making this post so large, so sorry for not cutting it up in parts, but im too tired to start re-editing it now._________________bidz @ efnet

well, DC is good for those who use some time on it i guess. but for me, i want a p2p application i can launch, connect, search and download. i dont want a system where i cant be connected to the whole network at the same time (1000's of hubs, which you cant connect to at the same time). i neither want to spend time finding good hubs, or good users that share good files, since dc's searching capabilities imho sucks bad, and is soooo slow. you even have to queue up to view filelists, which imho, is not good for me. and again, i want a p2p app that i can launch, connected, search and download - quick & easy.

besides, the "good" dc hubs are mosly private, or you are required to have a 10mbit+ (BBB/BKK are very popular) to just get in, and thats not counting 5+ upload spots AND a minimum of 50gb shared, etc., which alot of the über-hubs has as requirements.

Just to clarify it, i just want AudioGalaxy back i dont need p2p for anything else than rare/underground mp3's (techno/trance/remixes/bootlegs/live recordings/vinyl rips and that sort of stuff) - the "other" stuff i get throu ftp or rsync, so no need for any p2p stuff there._________________bidz @ efnet

i want a p2p app that i can launch, connected, search and download - quick & easy.

I notice you didn't include "and share with other users". Semi-OT rant here, but I cannot stand people who do not share their files and I will regularly drop someone who's d/l'ing from me if they don't have their files shared out as well.

The only way for p2p networks to be successful is if enough people share their files. Otherwise, the whole thing falls apart. For those of you with cable modems and DSL connections (which should be most of us if we're using Gentoo), why not leave your p2p apps open even when you're not actively using them?

And, to bidz; I'm not singling you out -- for all I know, you do share your files. Just pointing out a large problem on today's p2p networks.

To get things a bit more on-track, does anyone know of a client for any reasonably decent p2p network that will give me the ability to say, "share my files to other people only if they, in turn, have their files shared out to others"? That's the p2p network that I want to support.

--kurt_________________The problem with political jokes is that they get elected

And, to bidz; I'm not singling you out -- for all I know, you do share your files. Just pointing out a large problem on today's p2p networks.
--kurt

and in response, ofcourse, i have to say that i share approx. 15,000 mp3's/ogg's on OpenNap, and its usually up all the time. although i have a limit to 2 uploads at the same time, due to my 32kb/sec upload cap (16kb/sec each is ok for mp3's, if i removed the limit, i'd get like 10-50 download-requests all the time, making every upload go at 0.005kb/sec, due to me sharing so much). And yes, i agree with you - i usually regularely check up on users myself, and if they arent sharing - whoop, be gone - and if i use limewire, i also have a freeloader reject, meaning that you can deny people that doesnt share files to download from you - some people think this is kinda wrong, but i dont want freeloaders that think just about themselfs occupying my bandwith, thank you._________________bidz @ efnet